Govt to give over 600 alleged black money holders' list

The Central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to disclose the list of names of the black money account holders in foreign banks on Wednesday. This comes after the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked Centre to reveal names of all foreign account holders by Wednesday. The court had said that Special Investigation Team (SIT) will investigate black money and not the government.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley issued a statement saying that the government will submit all the names and that the probe should be done without offending countries that are helping India on the matter. "The government has no difficulty in placing the entire list and the same will be placed before the court tomorrow. The government has already given the list to the court constituted Special Investigating Team on June 27. We are keen that by whatever procedure in accordance with law we must get to the root of the matter," Jaitley said.

Jaitley said that the list will be given to the Supreme Court in a sealed envelope. However, he refrained from commenting whether the government is ready open to make the names public.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said that the complete list will be submitted by 10:30 AM to Supreme Court on Wednesday. "We had no problem to share the names with the supreme court. SIT functions under the supreme court jurisdiction. We Will face a problem in future treaties if all names are made public," Rohatgi added.

Hitting out hard at the government, the Supreme Court had said, "You do not do anything. Just pass information of account holders to us and we will pass order for further probe. You do not have to take interest in people having foreign bank accounts, the Special Investigation Team will take care of it."

"We can't leave the issue of bringing back black money to government. It will never happen during our time. Why are you providing protective umbrella to foreign bank account holders," the court said.

The Opposition parties too, did not miss a chance to take shots at the government after the Supreme Court's order. Congress claimed that the order has exposed the "lame excuses" being trotted out by the Centre. "During the Lok Sabha election campaign, BJP leaders were declaring from the rooftops that the black money stashed abroad will be brought back within 100 days. But when it came to declaring the names, they just released three," AICC General Secretary Ajay Maken said.

"BJP and its supporters like Ramdev had said that more than 50,000 people have stashed money away in foreign banks and Modi had said during the election campaign that Rs 15 lakh will be deposited in the bank accounts of all Indians once the black money is recovered," Maken added.

Another Congress leader, Manish Tewari, too, hailed the apex court's order saying it was "absolutely correct". "The chickens have come home to roost rather early in the day for this government. It has been caught in the rhetorical trap of of its own making. For five years you have (said) that the names would be made public as soon as you are in possession, and then you do a U-turn and argue absolutely the opposite," he said.

Welcoming the apex court's order, CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta said it is a "counter blow" to the government from judiciary on its "deliberate inaction. This is absolutely a clear case of judicial intervention to correct the position the country is facing today," he said.

Not just Opposition parties but BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, too, had said that the government is "wrong" in saying that names of foreign account holders could not be disclosed because of treaties. "Government was wrong in quoting Double Taxation Avoidance Treaty (DTAA), both the UPA and our government. And what has now come from the Supreme Court is correct position in law," he said.